


Agelast

by endgame



Category: Messiah Project - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-04-06 19:29:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4233894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endgame/pseuds/endgame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People are inherently good, Mamoru thinks; a short introspective piece involving Mamoru and Kaito.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Agelast

There’s some things that Mamoru has always found hard to understand.

It’s not really all that normal - or at least, not common - anymore to not understand this specific thing at his age. Not for someone with his job, either. But despite the fact that he tries his best at Section 4 and is out there in the world every day, he still can’t understand it. People who do these kinds of terrible things. People who hurt each other for a purpose that could never be as important as another person’s life. Although he’s not as entangled in the worst of it yet as he will be later in his life, he’s still seen enough. He’s still read enough in the reports he’s filed, too. If you consider everything, there should be no possible way that he could still be that naive and trusting and in a sense almost innocent.

Yet he is. Mamoru still doesn’t get it. Every report that he reads about it makes no sense. Every person he sees that was involved with such acts makes no sense to him. There’s times where he wonders if he should just ask how they can do these things, how they can be this way, but he figures he probably wouldn’t get a useful answer anyway. He’s seen those kind of people and they all look the same. Their eyes are dark, hollow, like black holes that feel like they might suck your soul out if you stare at them too long.

He just doesn’t get what could happen to a person to bring them to that point. He can’t say that he himself has had the best or the worst life, everything considered - there’s been some terrible things, but on the whole, he can still function fairly fine. He’s burdened with some things, but it’s not like he’s unhappy with the way his life is right now. Is that the reason that he can’t understand? Aren’t people inherently good– so what could break a person that badly, then?

It doesn’t help that he doesn’t have a shortage of people to look at to reaffirm his belief. Mamoru doesn’t have to look much further than his partner, after all. Takano might be the guy who’s always way overcompensating, especially in front of superiors, but he’s a great guy. He’s honest with himself and towards others, he’s always trying his best, he’s always smiling. Takano is such an earnest and hard-working guy that it motivates Mamoru every day to only try harder as well. It’s hard to not feel better after hanging around him at work most of the day. Takano with his smiles, Takano with his whistling of the same pop song that went out of style over two years ago, but is apparently still stuck in his head (and, consequentively, in Mamoru’s head too, but he doesn’t mind). If he doesn’t have to think twice about helping out Mamoru with a report or anything else at all, then it’s hard to believe there could be people out there who are just inherently bad, that there’s no salvaging it.

Of course he’s not the only prominent person in Mamoru’s life though.

Because the other person is sitting right here in front of him, on the other side of the table filled with various side dishes. Even though Mamoru is silently shoving his rice into his mouth as he’s thinking about all of it, Kaito is happily chatting away to the third side of the table - a table that doesn’t have anything but a filled plate that no one is eating from.

He’s talking about something (Mamoru caught something about computers, unsurprisingly, but none of the other words that are coming from his best friend’s mouth are quite registering with him) in the most animated way to someone who isn’t there. Someone whose plate gets filled, but never emptied. Someone whose bed was made a long time ago and never has to be made again aside from the nights Kaito climbs into that bed himself. Often Mamoru wonders just how long this can be kept up. How long before even Kaito, in the middle of his delusion, will run out of excuses as to why Haruto isn’t eating his food.

Or maybe Mamoru himself should say something about it. This delusion isn’t healthy, not to mention having to take it into account and keeping it up is both stressful and incredibly painful for Mamoru as well. Haruto was his friend too, after all.

But.. Kaito is so happy. He’s smiling, he’s so incredibly animated in a way he’s never been with most other people - he gestures, chatters, only vaguely remembers to still take bites of the food on his plate inbetween excited statements, followed up by a silence that only Mamoru perceives as awkward.

How can he ruin that? How could he do that to Kaito, no matter how sad this might be?

Even worse, what would that knowledge reduce Kaito to? Mamoru still remembers the period right after Haruto died as vividly as if he was still right there. He still remembers watching his best friend’s crumbled form as Kaito clung to the picture of his brother, seemingly wailing without end. Muttering over and over that it was his fault, that Haruto died because of him, whispering that name over and over to a point where Mamoru worried that he was losing not one, but two friends right there. That Kaito would never be the same again. That no matter how much Mamoru cried or told him that it wasn’t his fault at all, his voice wouldn’t even reach the other anymore.

But Kaito is right here, and the same as before - maybe even happier. But at what price? His world having grown so incredibly small, him not even really living his life.

.. people are inherently good, Mamoru thinks, and the same counts for Kaito. Without a doubt. Mamoru would trust Kaito with his life, he’d stick his hand into the fire for the other. He wouldn’t let anyone do as much as insinuate that Kaito can’t be trusted or is a bad person. (How could he ever believe that with the way he smiles so happily, so genuinely?)

But what if he told Kaito the truth? What if Kaito knew that Haruto was dead, and he’d be reduced to what he had been before he created this delusion inside his head to keep himself stable?

Mamoru tries to imagine Kaito like the criminals he deals with. No longer smiling, but instead sitting there without any particular expression, his eyes like black holes. A Kaito who wouldn’t talk passionately about some new fact he found out about the functions of some computer program, a Kaito who wouldn’t roll over and fall asleep against his side with a peaceful expression while Mamoru was finishing some overdue reports he had taken with him from work. Would that be enough to break him so badly that he’d end up that corrupted to? Is that the sort of thing it takes to bring someone to lash out, to hurt others? Could Kaito become that sort of person too, and the fact that he hasn’t is just due to the fact that Mamoru is too scared to tell him?

“Mamoru.”

A voice snaps him out of his thoughts, and Mamoru can’t hide the surprise at being caught off guard like that - it shows up clearly on his face as he glances over at the other. Before he can even find his words once more and answer, Kaito is already speaking up.

“I’m happy.” It’s followed up by a simple smile - it’s small, but Mamoru knows it’s just about the happiest Kaito gets. Especially since it’s followed up by him snuggling up a little closer to the kotatsu, bending forward until he’s resting with his head on the table, cheek smooshed against the wood. It’s a childish sort of gesture, it fits the dreamy way that Kaito lives his life nowadays, like everything passes in a haze for him.

(It’s probably not entirely unaccurate of an assessment, and Mamoru knows it.)

Mamoru forces a practiced (it’d have to be, considering for how long he’s already been dealing with these half-awkward situations) smile onto his face in return. “Oh?”

“Hmm.” Kaito just lets out that reaffirming sound, and raises his face from the table just enough to glance at Mamoru a moment later. “Being like this with just Haruto and Mamoru.. that’s enough.” It’s almost more as if he’s talking to himself (confirming it to himself), but Mamoru nods along as he listens anyway. “Just like this, I’m really happy..”

And it’s true. It’s true, and Mamoru knows, because Kaito is just so convinced of his own delusion that it really manages to make him this happy. In a way that nothing else could, if he knew the truth.

He has to swallow thickly and blame himself big time for the fact that he’s going along with it, but then Mamoru nods.

“Don’t worry. I…” His voice trails off a little, but then he sucks it up and steels himself a little more to be able to continue. “We’re not going anywhere.”

He’s not, at least. Even if it’s no way to live, practically taking care of Kaito when they’re peers, when he’s only a young adult trying to make the best out of things as well - there’s no other choice. He absolutely can’t abandon his friend, nor can he tell him the truth like this.

People are inherently good - and that’s why it’s up to him to keep Kaito from becoming one of the men with hollow eyes.


End file.
